Everything is Sunny in the Cloud… Maybe Even Sunnier When the Robots Take Over?

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By Neal Bellamy, IT Director at Kenton Brothers

Cloud-based physical access control systems offer several advantages over on-premise access control servers.

Here are a few key reasons why this is true:

Commercial Security and Artificial Intelligence1. Scalability: Cloud-based systems can easily scale to accommodate a growing number of users and devices, without the need for expensive hardware upgrades. This makes them a cost-effective solution for businesses that are expanding or experiencing high levels of turnover.
2. Remote Management: Cloud-based systems can be managed remotely, allowing administrators to manage access control from anywhere with an internet connection. This is especially useful for businesses with multiple locations or employees who travel frequently.
3. Increased Security: Cloud-based systems are often more secure than on-premise systems because they are managed by experts who specialize in security. They also benefit from automatic software updates and backups, which can help protect against data breaches and other security threats.
4. Cost-Effective: Cloud-based systems generally require a lower upfront investment than on-premise systems, as they do not require expensive hardware or software. Additionally, they eliminate the need for costly IT staff to manage and maintain the system.
5. Flexibility: Cloud-based systems can integrate with a wide range of devices and platforms, making them more flexible than on-premise systems. This allows businesses to easily add new features and functionality as their needs evolve.

It might surprise you that the content above was written by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Commercial Security and Artificial IntelligenceIt’s certainly not the best blog I’ve ever written, but it might not be the worst either. It’s factual, it is the top 5 reasons IT companies got to the cloud, and it has no grammatical errors. The coolest part about this content is that I asked only a single question to the AI… “Can you write a blog post on why cloud based physical access control is better than on premise access control server?”

As you can see from the question, I didn’t give much information. Yet the AI had gathered enough information to create five bullet points, use a beginning and ending paragraph and come up with valid statements. This particular AI is not specifically programmed to write blog content. It can also tell you about world events, write a Haiku in the voice of Captain Kirk, and solve math problems.

“Galaxy vast and wide
Stars that shine so bright and bold
Adventure calls forth.”

From a technological point of view, this is groundbreaking.

Computers have started to “think” for themselves. AI has been around for several years, but until now the “thinking” has been mainly contained to “What color is this object?” or “What fruit is in this video?” This is the first example I’ve seen where an artificial intelligence can take a subject and formulate a response on almost any topic based on its trained knowledge.

I can see AI launching into the commercial security world in an impactful way. While everything is “AI” right now, there is a major difference between telling a program what to look for to determine an outcome versus letting a program learn and make decisions based on past learning. I can certainly see a future where we don’t have to monitor commercial security systems for every single alert. Instead, an AI will monitor the incoming data and alert us when there is an anomaly. And we can define the rules that define an anomaly. I can see where an AI will alert us intelligently. Not that a person is in the parking lot. But the fact that there is a person in the parking lot, they have a saw, and they just disappeared under a car.

It will be interesting to see where this new AI charge leads us. I will certainly be paying attention to how AI can keep us safer while making it easier to manage commercial security systems.

If you need help designing and implementing a commercial security system to protect your people, property and possessions, please give us a call.

UPDATE: The Commercial Security Supply Chain in 2023

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2023 Commercial Security Supply Chain UpdateBy David Strickland, Vice President of Kenton Brothers

It’s obvious that the last couple of years have been really rough on the supply chain. Manufacturers of Commercial IP Video Surveillance and Access Control parts have had a rough go of it.

Over the last year, we’ve seen wait times from some of the industries largest and most prolific suppliers in the 40-52 week time frame. Did you read that correctly? Forty to fifty-two week wait times. This has had a major impact on the industry and the customers that require their goods.

One of our customers shared, “Our trust levels in these manufacturers are at an all time low. Not because they don’t have quality goods, it’s because of their lack of delivery and timely information.”

Timely and Accurate Information

Timely and accurate information has risen to the top of the concerns list over the last 6 months. Manufacturers communicate a delivery date, then as the delivery date approaches they de-commit the products and send out new commitment dates. This happened often, across many of the commercial security manufacturers, and led to the inflation of delivery projections to the 40-52 week mark.

These kinds of wait times make it difficult to finish or even commit to new projects. This has led to a surge for those manufacturers that have goods available for integration immediately. One representative recently asked, “Now that our supply chain is returning to a more manageable time frame, can we count on Kenton Brothers to come back?”  It’s a great question and one that the customer will need to answer.

2023 Outlook

2023 Commercial Security Supply Chain UpdateBased on the research of industry experts, here is a breakdown of things to come in 2023 based on their insights and opinions.

HID READERS: Outlook Grade: C

HID Readers are still going to take between 10 and 40 weeks to arrive.

The issue is still the chip and it doesn’t look likely to improve for several more months. Some versions of Lenel’s Blue Diamond readers are only 4 weeks out. Some Allegion readers are down to 4 weeks delivery time but some still have 25 week delivery times. Gallagher readers are shipping within 2 weeks.

Many of our customers are having to choose prox readers that are less secure in order to get “into the building” with plans to replace them later on.

Commercial Video Surveillance: Outlook Grade: C+

Multi Imagers, PYTZ’s and Fish Eyes tend to be the issue in this category. The chips are the issue here also.

AXIS has seen times come down and product is starting to hit the distributors shelves. However, their serve time is still as far out as 40 weeks on some of their lines. Axis has been switching out chipsets and launching new part numbers to help. Avigilon is running up to 24 weeks and has seen some progress. Hanwa and Bosch have better serve times, but with their more sophisticated cameras they’re still suffering from longer than normal times.  March Networks has normal serve times for their cameras and recorders and are picking up market share because of it.

Access Control Systems: Outlook Grade: B

This is a tale of two types, Mercury and Non-Mercury.

Mercury serve times have fallen in the last several weeks and availability for some of the manufacturers will improve in the next couple months. Lenel is currently between 1-12 weeks in most of their projected serve times. 4 months ago these were up at 28-40 weeks. Software House and S2 continues to have serve times between 6 and 20 weeks but these represent half the serve time they had just weeks ago. The mercury delays effect Avigilon also and other manufacturers using their technology. Gallagher Access Control is shipping within 2 weeks.

Electrified Locking Hardware: Outlook Grade: D

Unfortunately, this category is where the largest delays are manifesting themselves and there doesn’t seem to be any “light at the end of the tunnel” coming soon.

Currently, both major players, Allegion and Assa Abloy are communicating between 20-40 weeks for their more popular smart locks. This has opened an opportunity for manufacturers such as Alarm Lock who is currently shipping their smart locks in 4-6 weeks. This delay continues to effect projects all over the country with all Access Control manufacturers.

I know our customers will be excited when these times come down to more normal levels.

Overall Grade for 2023 Commercial Security Supply Chain: C

According to the experts at Forbes magazine, the 2023 supply chain issues will not return to pre-covid levels for a few years. The two biggest issues they say are contributing to the slower recovery are inflation and the disappearance of workforce. They’re saying that this is the new normal for a while. They also see a larger issue with raw materials being sourced in a timely manner as lower wage workers found ways to earn more by learning new skills during the pandemic.

In summary – Commercial Security supply chain serve times are improving in most categories, so we’ll give them a passing grade. We love our partnerships and are rooting for our partners to prove the experts wrong. Our manufacturers are led by talented and passionate people. This gives us confidence that things will improve in 2023.

Unusual and Hard to Find Security Products Part 2

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By Erik Andress, Sales Management Professional at Kenton Brothers

Access control and surveillance cameras are two of the most often talked about technologies when it comes to commercial security solutions. At times, you need something special to accomplish your security objective. So we started a video series to showcase some of the unusual and hard to find security products that might be a perfect fit for your specific security need.

If you haven’t watched part one, you can watch that here.

Products We Cover in Part 2

  • Laminates
  • Seismic Sensors
  • Bill Traps
  • Perimeter Intrusion Detection

We hope you enjoy the video… there are so many tools and technologies to cover, we may do a Part 3!

Please let us know if you have questions about any of the products we covered in this video or how they might become part of your commercial security solution. All you have to do is give us a call!

License Plate Capture: Does your Commercial Video Surveillance have a WOW Factor?

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License Plate CaptureBy Neal Bellamy, IT Director at Kenton Brothers

We’ve been doing a series about commercial security products with a Wow! factor. (If you missed it, check out Does your Access Control have a WOW Factor? ) In this article, I’d like for you to consider if your current commercial video surveillance system has a WOW factor, specifically around license plates.

License Plate Capture

There are many cases where you would want to be able to capture the information on a license plate. Obvious situations include theft or accidents in the parking lot. Lots of people call this concept license plate recognition (LPR), but we prefer to call it license plate capture (LPC). When you say license plate recognition, most people are expecting 100% accuracy in all weather and lighting conditions, and with vehicles moving at any speed. It’s possible to achieve high accuracy with license plate capture, but it becomes an expensive endeavor to compensate for all the environmental possibilities. License plate capture success is in the 70%-80% range. Cameras will capture a still image of the license plate and usually strike a good balance of performance and cost.

I’ve talked about license plate capture previously. The same rules still apply. You need stable lighting, cars that are as squarely oriented as possible to the camera, and good video analytics. Let’s explore a couple of options in the LPR/LPC world. In the solutions below, Kenton Brothers has installed systems with successful results. Each solution has their own pros and cons that need to be considered before choosing a path for your own business.

Avigilon

License Plate CaptureFirst up is Avigilon. Avigilon has dedicated software that will capture license plates across any of their cameras, and a dedicated camera to give the software the best chance at getting license plates. The Avigilon LPR software is well integrated into their Avigilon Control Center (ACC) video management system.

Searching for license plates is as easy as searching for any video. The LPR software is organized into “lanes” in the camera’s view as an area where it will search for license plates. Watchlists can be created to watch for important cars. The horsepower needed to perform the analytics comes from a graphics processing unit (GPU) in the server. Most people would refer to it as a video card, although it needs to be slightly more powerful than your standard video card. The Avigilon LPR software is a good choice if you already have an Avigilon camera system or are replacing a video system and want License Plate Capture.

Vaxtor

Next, is Vaxtor. Vaxtor is a software-only solution that can integrate into many different video management systems. Although we tend to implement their “On Camera” solution, they also have a PC-based solution.

Vaxtor’s On Camera solution uses an Axis camera with the Vaxtor software loaded onto it to perform the license plate capture. Once the capture is done, the license plate information is sent to the video management system. Axis has many cameras that can do license plate capture, and they have a dedicated Q-1700, just for that purpose.

Vaxtor integrates with many video management systems. We typically use Milestone for this. Searching for video is still fairly easy using the Milestone interface. Since the horsepower here is on the camera itself, there is no need to add or use horsepower from the servers. Watchlists are loaded to each license plate camera in the system as needed. Vaxtor is a good solution if you already have a video management system in place that Vaxtor supports.

Dedicated LPC Solutions

License Plate CaptureThe main difference with a dedicated solution versus the other 2 solutions is the camera. While both Avigilon and Vaxtor use a camera that produces a color, person-usable image, a dedicated LPC camera does not.

First, the camera does not rely on visible light, rather it uses Infrared (IR) light, to blast the reflective parts of the license plate. Then the camera only captures IR light. The main benefit is that it’s not dependent on any ambient lighting and that the process of recognizing the plate is not fooled by colors. Usually, these cameras also record at a much higher framerate, typically 60 – 120 frames per second. This makes it easier to detect cars that are moving quickly, by capturing more frames.

Dedicated systems are more flexible in the setup process, but also require more expertise to operate. Usually, this type of system is more expensive, but also more accurate. If you need a solution where you ­must capture the license plate, this is your best option.

If you want to add WOW to your commercial video surveillance system by adding license plate capture, KB will help you design and install an LPC solution to fit your needs! Just give us a call.

Exciting News From Axis Communications – Device Manager Extend is a Major Innovation!

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Device Manager ExtendBy David Strickland, Vice President of Kenton Brothers

Axis recently announced a huge innovation that will impact Axis camera users all over the world. Innovation is one of Kenton Brothers core values and we use the tagline “Innovate or Die” all the time. We enjoy seeing technology evolve and take the next step. In this case Axis took a huge leap!

Device Manager Extend

Axis rolled out the Axis Device Manager Extend tool that will help users worldwide manage all of their Axis Communications devices. It’s an easy-to-use utility tool that allows users to interact with AXIS devices in real time and make updates from a single dashboard. This is a huge advantage for enterprise level commercial surveillance systems.

Axis Device Manager ExtendThe New Axis Device Manager Extend will give you real time status awareness of all devices across all sites. It also gives you an inventory of all devices and if there are any anomalies. The dashboard provides warranty information and if components are reaching end of life. You can even determine the replacement model and start to budget for new equipment. The dashboard also allows you to export a list of all your devices including serial numbers, MAC addresses and model numbers.

Device Status

A user can get real time device status including firmware, cybersecurity status and how applications are working on the device. You can access your Axis devices remotely, giving you centralized control of your security platform. You can discover the firmware of your devices and then push the updates to your entire platform in three clicks. (This used to be a device-by-device task that would take days or weeks to accomplish.) You can remotely fix many problems without the expense of rolling at truck.

Have you ever updated a device’s firmware and found a problem?

Axis Device Manager ExtendAxis Device Manager Extend will also allow you to roll back firmware updates if an issue pops up. Before you upgrade, the manager will analyze your system and make recommendations on what firmware versions to use during the upgrade.

How about Cybersecurity Control?

You can now control device settings remotely for the entire platform. You can require password changes, turn off anonymous access, turn off port forwarding and log every interaction with every device. Using the tool will ensure and maintain compliance and consistency across your systems. (The key word being consistent.)

The best news about this tool is that it’s available today! Whether you’re an IT Professional trying to stay on top of a 6,000 camera commercial video surveillance system or a business owner trying to make sure your 16 camera system isn’t creating a cybersecurity risk, this tool is for you!

Please give us a call to learn how you can deploy this amazing, innovative tool today.